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The Reform UK leader portrays his Reform UK party as a unique occurrence that has exploded on to the world stage, its meteoric rise an exceptional epochal event. But this week, in every one of Europe’s major countries and from the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to the United States and South America, far-right, anti-immigrant, anti-globalisation parties similar to his are also ahead in the public surveys.

In last Saturday’s Czech elections, the conservative, pro-Russian leader Andrej Babiš overthrew the head of government Petr Fiala. A French political group, which has just forced the resignation of yet another France's leader, is ahead the polls for both the French presidency and the legislature. In the German nation, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is currently the most popular party. Hungary’s Fidesz party, Robert Fico’s pro-Russian Slovakian coalition and the Brothers of Italy are already in government, while the Austrian FPÖ, the Dutch PVV and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang – all hardline nationalists – are part of an global alliance of anti-internationalists, inspired by right-wing influencers like Steve Bannon, aiming to overthrow the international rule of law, diminish fundamental freedoms and destroy multilateral cooperation.

The Populist Nationalist Surge

The populist nationalist surge reveals a new and unavoidable truth that supporters of democracy ignore at our peril: an nationalist ideology – once thought defeated with the Berlin Wall – has supplanted economic liberalism as the leading belief system of our age, giving us a world of priorities: “America first”, “Indian focus”, “Chinese emphasis”, “Russian primacy”, “my tribe first” and often “my tribe first and only” regimes. It is this nationalist sentiment that helps explain why the world is now composed of many autocratic states and fewer democratic ones, and this ideology is the driver behind the breaches of international human rights law not just by Russia in Ukraine but in almost every one of the world’s 59 cross-border conflicts and civil wars.

Root Causes Explained

Crucial to understand the root causes, widespread globally, that have fuelled this new age of nationalism. It starts with a broadly shared perception that a globalisation that was accessible yet exclusionary has been a free for all that has been unjust to all.

Over the past ten years, leaders have not only been slow to respond to the millions who feel excluded and marginalized, but also to the changing balance of world economic influence, transitioning from a US-dominated era once dominated by the US to a multi-power landscape of competing superpowers, and from a rules-based order to a power-based one. The ethnic nationalism that this has provoked means free trade is giving way to trade barriers. Where market forces used to drive politics, the politics of nationalism is now driving economic decisions, and already more than 100 countries are running mercantilist policies marked out by bringing production home and ally-focused trade and by restrictions on cross-border trade, investment and knowledge sharing, sinking global collaboration to its lowest ebb since the post-war period.

Hope in Global Public Sentiment

But all is not lost. The situation is not fixed, and even as it hardens we can see optimism in the pragmatism of the world's population. In a recent survey for a major foundation, of thousands of individuals in 34 countries we find a significant portion are less receptive to an exclusionary nationalism and more willing to support international cooperation than many of the leaders who govern them.

Across the world there is, maybe unexpectedly, only a small group of hardened anti-internationalists representing a minority of the world's people (even if a quarter in the United States currently) who either feel coexistence between ethnic and religious groups is impossible or have a win-lose perspective that if they or their country do well, it has to be at the expense of others doing badly.

But there are another 21% at the opposite extreme, whom we might call committed internationalists, who either still see international collaboration through open trade as a positive sum win-win, or are what a prominent philosopher calls “rooted cosmopolitans”.

The Global Majority's Stance

Most people of the world's citizens are somewhere in between: not narrow, inward-looking nationalists, as “US priority” ideology would suggest, or all-in cosmopolitans. They are patriotic but don’t see the world as in a never-ending struggle between the “our side” and the “others”, opponents always divided from each other in an unbridgeable divide.

Are most moderates favor a obligation-light or a dutiful world? Are they willing to accept obligations beyond their local area or community boundaries? Yes, under specific circumstances. A initial segment, about a fifth, will support aid efforts to alleviate hardship and are prepared to act out of altruism, supporting disaster relief for disaster zones. Those we might call “charitable” multilateralists empathize of others and believe in something bigger than themselves.

A second group comprising 22% are pragmatic multilateralists who want to know that any taxes paid for international development are spent well. And there is a final category, roughly a fifth, personally motivated collaborators, who will endorse cooperation if they can see that it benefits them and their communities, whether it be through guaranteeing them basic necessities or peace and security.

Building a Cooperative Majority

Thus a clear majority can be constructed not just for emergency assistance if money is well spent but also for global action to deal with worldwide issues, like climate crisis and pandemic prevention, as long as this argument is argued on grounds of enlightened self-interest, and if we emphasize the reciprocal benefits that flow to them and their own country. And thus for those who have long wondered whether we work together from necessity or if we have a need to cooperate, the response is each.

This willingness to cooperate across borders shows how we can reverse the anti-foreigner sentiment: we can overcome current pessimistic, inward-looking and often aggressive and authoritarian nationalism that demonises newcomers, foreigners and “others” as long as we champion a positive, outward-looking and inclusive patriotism that addresses people’s need for community and connects to their everyday worries.

Tackling Key Issues

Although detailed surveys tell us that across the Western nations, unauthorized entry is currently the top concern – and it's clear that it must promptly be managed effectively – the public sentiment data also tell us that the public are even more concerned about what is happening in their own lives and within their immediate neighborhoods. Last month, the UK Prime Minister spoke movingly about how what’s good about Britain can overcome what’s bad, doing so precisely because in most developed nations, “broken” and “deteriorating” are the words people have for years most commonly cited when asked about both our financial system and society.

But as the leader also reminded us, the extreme right is more interested in using complaints than ending them. Nigel Farage praised a disastrous mini-budget as “the best Conservative budget” since the 1980s. But he would also enact a comparable strategy – what was planned – the biggest ever cuts in public services. Reform’s plan to cut government expenditure by £275bn would not repair downtrodden communities but damage them, turn citizen against citizen and wreck any spirit of solidarity. Under a far-right government, you will not be able to afford to be ill, impaired, needy or vulnerable. Every day from now on, and in every constituency, the party should be asked which medical facility, which educational institution and which public service will be the first to be cut or shut down.

The Stakes and the Alternative

“Faragism” is economic theory at its most cruel, more destructive even than monetarism, and spiteful far beyond fiscal restraint. What the people are telling us all over the west is that they want their leaders to restore our economies and our civic societies. “The party” and its international partners should be exposed repeatedly for policies that would devastate both. And for those of us who believe our greatest achievements could be ahead of us, we can go beyond pointing out the party's contradictions by setting out a case for a improved nation that appeals not just to idealists, but to realists, to self-interest, and to the daily kindness of the British people.